Learning
through change
Christina Schulte-Kutsch
“If I want to shape the future, it can’t feel like the past”
Christina Schulte-Kutsch, Senior Vice President Talent & Organization, ZF Group
What is the E-Cademy?
Issues like digitization, electric mobility and autonomous driving are causing huge changes in job and competence profiles in the industry. The E-Cademy is a qualification initiative to develop knowledge and expertise related to electric mobility. We want to give our employees an opportunity to understand what is changing, and what that means specifically for their jobs.
Firstly, this is a broad-based qualification: It is founded on a knowledge model developed alongside internal and external experts that lists eleven concrete fields of knowledge for the future. After checking their current knowledge, we offer relevant content depending on what they already know: each learner can put together their own individual learning path. That’s the basic concept. We recommend content, but we don’t set limits. Everyone can access all of the content. Our goal is to spark interest in learning beyond one’s own area of expertise. We value self-organization highly. This is in line with the modern working world, and supports the cultural shift in learning.
Does this apply to all employees?
Yes. We have developed two concepts. Desk workers complete their knowledge check and learn via an e-learning platform. They can individually access content and take part in virtual live sessions. It was very important to us that workers in manufacturing could also learn about and experience the future. Employees without access to a PC are brought in via a face-to-face concept consisting of two modules: the first is a content-based learning concept teaching basic knowledge on electric mobility. We created standardized learning materials for the train-the-trainer approach, then translated these into the respective national languages. Topics are explained and discussed at manufacturing sites in workshops. In addition, there is a kind of road show which lets production employees learn more about our new products. This gives them a feel for products that might be produced at their site later on.
How many people are taking part in the program?
We currently have over 22,000 participants across the group. We started with a selected division where electric mobility plays a particularly important role. Based on the positive feedback and high user rates, we opened up the program to the whole group and added the topic of digitization. The platform is now known as the ZF Skills Hub, since we deal with other forward-thinking issues now in addition to electric mobility.
How was the online platform created?
We specifically chose a concept that we can develop continuously in collaboration with the departments and active users. This means we went live with only a small amount of content, then added to it step by step. We used a dashboard and feedback we received to carefully analyze what works, then made adjustments and developments as needed in parallel.
Based on this positive experience, we have now provided comparable programming on the topic of digitization. Here as well, we already have 18,000 users after just a short time.
How do you teach hard skills?
Our intention is to provide a broad knowledge base via the platform. However, we actively inform learners of advanced qualification opportunities. This means we link them to programs outside of the platform to support comprehensive professionalization in a certain knowledge area. There are other training programs besides the ZF Skills Hub. We also offer re-skilling trips to qualify our employees for new jobs at ZF in highly impacted fields, like classic transmission developers. Some of these are multi-month, full-time programs.
Was there anything that really surprised you?
I was surprised how quickly we could reach so many people. I think this is because we developed our model to be very user-centered. We held a lot of focus group interviews, for instance, and involved the departments closely. We valued speed over perfection. We were even a little surprised at how quickly we went; we launched the E-Cademy after just a year of planning.
ZF values training and continuing education highly – however, thus far this has been handled in a very classic way. Going to an online platform and focusing on independent learning was a totally new approach. In retrospect, however, I don’t think our success is all that surprising. The platform and its content are modern and up-to-date, as are the live sessions. What is important is that if I want to shape the future, it can’t feel like the past. The learning concept also needs to reflect the future, and help people experience the future already in their everyday lives today.